During a lengthy interview midday on CNBC, Thomas Peterffy, the Hungarian-American billionaire founder of Interactive Brokers said that Putin is psychologically incapable of accepting his own failure in Ukraine, caused by the dictator’s misjudgment in expecting quick success and presuming the face-saving achievement of territorial possessions.
Peterffy predicts that Putin’s incapability of accepting defeat will lead him to deploy a tactical nuclear weapon in a desperate attempt to change the tides of his war.
The recorded full recorded interview is available on CNBC at the following link:
https://www.cnbc.com/video/2022/04/26/watch-cnbcs-full-inter…
Peterffy’s assessment is consistent with some of the information I have read about the military training received by Russia’s generals, which includes “escalate to de-escalate,” a tactical doctrine within Russia’s deterrence strategy.
https://globalsecurityreview.com/nuclear-de-escalation-russi…
Putin’s own representative Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, warned there’s a “serious” risk of nuclear war over Ukraine in a statement the U.S. blasted as the “height of irresponsibility.”
“The danger is serious, real. It can’t be underestimated,” Lavrov said in a state TV interview broadcast late Monday.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-04-26/russia-wa…
Several outlets are reporting how Lavrov is attempting to lay the groundwork for blaming the US if nuclear action is taken by Putin. He claims that NATO’s territorial expansion and use of Ukraine as a proxy against Russia is evidence of US effort to retain unipolar global hegemony and that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine was initiated for the purpose of keeping US/NATO territorial expansion in check.
Moscow’s ambassador to Washington told the United States to halt shipments, warning Western weapons were inflaming the conflict. Lavrov said: “NATO, in essence, is engaged in a war with Russia through a proxy and is arming that proxy. A la guerre comme à la guerre.”
In another interview on 19 April Lavrov said that Russia would not use nuclear weapons in Ukraine. However, experts have warned that a Russian attack with tactical nuclear weapons could be aimed at a target outside Ukraine.
https://www.euractiv.com/section/global-europe/news/lavrov-w…